Champfleury's Richard Wagner is a book that refuses to sit neatly on any shelf. Published in 1860, it's part biography, part novel, and entirely an oddity. The author, a French realist writer, takes the bare facts of Wagner's tumultuous early career—his exile from Germany, his penniless years in Paris, his mountain of debts—and spins them into a first-person narrative. He puts words in the composer's mouth, imagining Wagner's frustrations, his artistic visions, and his desperate scrambles to avoid the law.

The Story

The plot follows a young Richard Wagner, not yet the famous creator of epic operas, but a struggling artist. He's drowning in debt in Paris, and his creditors have had enough. The threat of debtors' prison is immediate and real. The book unfolds as this fictional Wagner recounts his flight, his constant hustling to get his music heard, and his unwavering, almost arrogant, belief in his own genius despite public indifference. It's less about the facts of his life (which Champfleury takes liberties with) and more about the atmosphere of struggle and the psychology of an artist convinced he's destined for greatness, even while being chased by bailiffs.

Why You Should Read It

What hooked me was the sheer audacity of it. This isn't a dry historical account. It's a close-up, gritty, and strangely intimate portrait built on invention. You get a sense of the grime and glamour of 1850s Parisian bohemia. Champfleury doesn't idolize Wagner; he shows him as brilliant, prickly, desperate, and human. The book's power comes from this fictional intimacy. It feels like you're overhearing a confession in a cramped attic room. You're not learning what happened as much as you're feeling how it might have felt to be Wagner at his lowest point, with nothing but his colossal ego and talent to keep him going.

Final Verdict

This is a niche gem, but a brilliant one. It's perfect for music lovers who enjoy historical fiction, or anyone fascinated by the messy lives of cultural icons. If you want a standard biography, look elsewhere. But if you want a short, immersive, and creatively bold take on the myth-making around genius—a novel that asks what happens when one artist tries to channel another—then hunt this down. It's a unique, forgotten perspective on a giant, from the pen of a clever observer who decided to imagine the man behind the music.